Ground-Based Submillimagnitude CCD Photometry of Bright Stars Using Snapshot Observations

Abstract

We demonstrate ground-based submillimagnitude (<10^-3) photometry of widely separated bright stars using snapshot CCD imaging. We routinely achieved this photometric precision by (1) choosing nearby comparison stars of a similar magnitude and spectral type, (2) defocusing the telescope to allow high signal (>10^7 electrons) to be acquired in a single integration, (3) pointing the telescope so that all stellar images fall on the same detector pixels, and (4) using a region of the CCD detector that is free of nonlinear or aberrant pixels. We describe semiautomated observations with the Supernova Integrated Field Spectrograph (SNIFS) on the University of Hawaii 2.2m telescope on Mauna Kea, with which we achieved photometric precision as good as 5.2x10^-4 (0.56mmag) with a 5 minute cadence over a 2hr interval. In one experiment, we monitored eight stars, each separated by several degrees, and achieved submillimagnitude precision with a cadence (per star) of ~17 minutes. Our snapshot technique is suitable for automated searches for planetary transits among multiple bright stars.